


Whosoever Possesses this Hammer

by xama



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 04:26:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18985243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xama/pseuds/xama
Summary: The people of Puente Antiguo always loved John's cooking. It was his hobby and life's work. Today, John's skills are put to the test. Thor Odinson, newly arrived to Earth, didn't even have a chance.





	Whosoever Possesses this Hammer

The people that lived in and around Puente Antiguo - some called them hicks, yokels, dirt farmers, and they weren’t necessarily wrong - but they knew how to have a party. Trucks in a circle, barbeque fired up, a massive hammer-like thing in a giant crater. That last one was new, of course. Red ‘Eric’ Olsen had first come across it - and been unable to lift it. He’d called his cousin, his cousin had called all his cousins, and eventually John Freeman was notified, and decided to bring his barbeque. That’s when the party really started, nobody could resist John’s cooking. They even say that John Freeman single-grilledly desegregated the town back in the 1970s.

The hammer was an attraction for sure, everyone tried to lift it - they even tried chaining it to old Stan’s truck, that didn’t work. Eventually it was Red’s son that noticed the strange black car and the weirdo in the suit. The call went around, last chance to try the hammer before the government swarmed.

John Freeman never meant to try the hammer - he really only came to cook. Cooking was John’s passion - it hadn’t always been, though. When he was younger he loved getting into fights, loved standing up for what he believed in with his fists - he’d joined up, voluntarily went to Vietnam. He came back, unlike a lot of his drafted friends - unlike his cousin. He didn’t fight, after that - turned to cooking and never looked back.

He set his barbeque down here because he figured all the people who were lifting the hammer could use some grub - and that good food made people unwilling to fight. It was Stan who prompted him to, or rather bugged him until he went down into that crater and put his hands on the thing  - Stan was a weird one, but generally likeable, and he had some real swell ideas sometimes.

John felt something, then. He felt like in that hammer, in his hands, there was power. Great power, and the requisite responsibility. If he lifted the hammer, everything he knew would change. He may never again fire up his grill, bring joy to himself by making others fat and merry - but he could bring joy to others a different way. Maybe he could find what he lost in Vietnam - he’d considered fighting back, when he’d returned. He almost became a Weatherman, and not the type that predicts storms - people said that Vietnam changed him, and it did, but he’d come back ready to fight. He calmed down pretty quickly, he renounced war, swore he wouldn’t continue the cycle. He brought peace through his cooking, and it made him happy.

This hammer, whatever it was - maybe it would bring a different kind of peace? John was a simple man - he wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t even book-stupid, he’d read Nietzsche and Voltaire, and a bunch of other weird-ass German and French philosophers. He knew a bunch of theories about the human condition, about the meaning of life, about a bunch of other topics that didn’t actually matter. He was a simple man because he didn’t care about any of those theories - he knew that people got really angry sometimes, or really stupid, sometimes really greedy, often a combination, and then they fought. Sometimes it was a small tussle, 1 on 1, 2 on 3, but sometimes it was bigger, sometimes it was a big battle, sometimes it was a war. The small ones, John could defuse with his cooking. He’d defused a riot or two in his time, but never a war.

John didn’t like violence, it wasn’t a tool that he used much anymore - but it was a tool, and an effective one. There’d been weird stuff happening lately, more and more, John watched the news. Iron Man, for one; some guy who looked just like old news reels of Captain America running around New York being chased by what looked like government agents for another. That one wasn’t commonly known, but old Stan had a lot of friends and loved gossiping.

 All these people, all these things, that green thing that ravaged Harlem, they were dangerous. This thing, this hammer, it was dangerous too - but John figured that it knew that. Something in it was almost glowing - it seemed to have some idea of who he was. Not his name, not his history - but who he was as person. It had probably gauged everyone else who tried to lift it, but it hadn’t spoken to them like it was to John, otherwise they woulda mentioned it.

Maybe all these weirdos, all these Iron Men and Incredible Bulks, all they needed was someone to knock some sense into them, sit them down and fill them with good food. A pat on the back, a sympathetic ear - and some time to unwind and decompress, think about what they were doing.

John stopped thinking. His life was good, he knew it - better than he thought he deserved after ‘Nam. But he could make a bigger difference, with whatever this hammer gave him.

He lifted it.

-

In the hospital in Puento Antigue, the restrained yet buff hobo didn’t feel anything wrong. He didn’t realize his hammer had chosen another. But someone else had.

Heimdal looked down at Midgard - Earth, as they called it. “Hmm.” Should he say something? Heimdal was stuck on Bifrost duty pretty much permanently - he didn’t resent it, but it got pretty boring, and it had… frayed his sanity, a little bit. Otherwise he probably wouldn’t have just let Thor’s merry band of idiots go to Jotunheim, with his blessing no less.

It was adorable that Loki had actually thought that he had to convince Heimdal, one of the few things that Heimdal could do for fun these days was help along diplomatic incidents. Heimdal was not near Loki’s level in causing chaos, but it was one of his guilty pleasures.

So should he inform Odin Allfather? Or perhaps Loki? Frigga, perhaps, or the Warriors 3+1. No, Heimdall thought, better to let them find out naturally. Thor would probably learn his lesson somehow, and would unlock his powers some other way - perhaps he’d get with that Stark fellow and have a flying suit, that would really baffle Odin. And this John Freeman, this mortal who had been deemed worthy of and by Mjolnir - actually, screw it. Heimdall slotted the sword into the stone and activated the bifrost to bring this amusing no-longer-mortal to Asgard. Why wait? Why not stir the pot, perhaps this man would end up King of Asgard. That would be amusing, truly.


End file.
